Hard at Work in Perth Computer Repair Center

Alex our Special Tech Engineer hard at work (a rare sight) today on a busy computer repair bench in Perth.

Computer hygiene

External and internal computer hygiene is important to maintain the very important air cooling for your computer.

We have 2 examples in the Perth Computer Repair Center at the moment of computers  that have 'cooked'

As the air flow has been slowly restricted, so the computers internal temperature has risen and all the components stressed. Over time, this can lead to motherboard or critical component failure which could result in the computer being uneconomic to repair.

Please DO NOT take the hoover or Dyson near the internals of the machine! Gentle compressed air only but to be honest, best to take it to your local computer repair center.

Computer Hard Drive Death

If you see this, it means that your hard disk is failing big style and in fact it might be pass the point of no return.

Best thing to do is get it down to you local PC shop and see if they can recover the data .

http://www.pcsolutions.co.uk/computer-repairs.php

Seasonal Computer Faults

Workshop is running at full tilt fixing computers broken over Christmas.

No real trend, but some machines have clearly been hammered!

Hard Drive Clicking

This is always a bad sound to hear from a hard drive. It means there is something mechanically wrong with the hard drive.

If you do start hearing strange noises coming from your hard drive. Turn your computer off and bring it into the shop. There is a chance that we are able to save your data.

iPhone Controlled Coffee Machine

As computer engineers who live on a constant supply of caffeine while repairing all manner of laptops and computers, we really do appreciate the engineering and thought behind this particular gem :)

http://mashable.com/2011/12/28/scanomat-coffee-brewer-design/

New Small Form Factor PC Range

Been working on some of the new Shuttle Mini PCs today and I think I'm in love with them :)

http://www.pcsolutions.co.uk/news/PC-solutions-gains-shuttle-mini-pc-reseller-status.html

UPDATE:

We have just finished specifying and building this little beauty which will place most modern games at medium resolution but with a small foot print AND the ability to stream media.

http://www.pcsolutions.co.uk/products/mini-pc-gaming-system.html

Very Sweet :)

Computer Engineer Christmas Gifts

Our computer engineers and geek friends were given some brilliant gifts which we'd like to share with you.

The first one was given to one of our geek friends Scott for his dedication to providing technical support for his family over the years:

if anybody needs an explanation, just give us a ping :)

Xmas is a Holy Occassion

One of our engineers is being holy today :)

Are we Nerds, Geeks, Dorks or all??

As computer engineers, we found this article fascinating but we have a theory.

Donald and Alex are Vulcans through and through because they are purely logical and don't do emotions.

Keith is like Spock, half Vulcan, half Human and able to deal with the Humans on their level but struggles as well the the concept of emotions.

But this article really opened up a rat's nest so we would really appreciate your help to find our true categorisation.   Have a read at this and please give us your thoughts!

Steam Sale

As a enthusiastic gamer I am always on the look out for games that are discounted or on sale. For the last couple days Steam a game distributor platform has had a massive sale on. Games coming in a 80-90% off.
I have just purchased myself the  ID Software package which is aprox 20 games all in one for £20. This package include the new game called "Rage" yet it comes with all the Doom games and all the Quake games which are old yet still great fun to play.

Here is a link to the steam page. To get the games you will have to install the steam platform and create yourself an account which is all easy to do.
http://store.steampowered.com/

We might have to diet in the New Year

A client whose computer we fixed this morning very kindly brought us some noms

As food loving computer engineers, we have to watch our figures  :)

Laptop Skinned

So another one of my designs skinned on the top of a laptop. Pretty cool right :)

Xmas Crisis

Just been handed a rush job to build a computer for running Football Manager 2012. Gotta have it ready within  2hrs

But we'll do it. Don't want a Christmas spoiled!

Handy Password Strength Checker

This is a great tool for checking the strength of your Windows passwords and the great thing is that it does it without revealing them!

You can get it for free from Password Security Strength Tester

Handy computer password hints http://www.pcsolutions.co.uk/news/computer-passwords-a-quick-guide-to.html

A Fix for Laptop Cursor Problems

Bugged by an over sensitive touch pad? Have a look at this neat solutionhttp://www.pcsolutions.co.uk/news/a-cure-for-jumpy-laptop-cursor-syndrome.html

When a backup is not a backup

A client brought an external drive into us that contained all of her most valuable digital assets: photos, music, home videos, documents and ALL of her uni course work.

The problem is that she cannot read the drive and she has no other copies of the data.

We have tried every technique in the book and we just cannot get the drive to talk to us. We have replaced the controller board, sorted some dry joints, used various file systems to try and kick the drive into life, even a short spell in the freezer and the old electric short jump start failed :(

Alas we are unable to help her

So the lesson to be learned is that external drives are fallible and they WILL fail at some point. Do not rely on them as your sole means of backup. U must have at least 3, preferably 5 copies of your data in existence at any one time AND in separate geographical locations.

Local, external drive and online backups should all be part of your backup strategy.

A very useful saying: Just remember Jesus saves, Buddha makes incremental backups. Thanks to Scott Cowie for this gem

Recomendations

Comet are sending customers to us for computer repairs :)

Our Chief Computer Engineer has a new 'motivator'

Donald our Chief Computer Problem Solver has a wicked sense of funny. He now uses the device below to 'motivate' a slow engineer!

A rubber band gun!!

A Big Thank You

We would like to give a big thank you to Neil (The full time holiday taker) For the bottle of Whisky he left us. As Keith and myself are whisky drinkers this is much appreciated and we look forward to savoring it once we have cleared the work bench.

Dead Desktop Computer

A desktop was brought in today non booting. Owner in major panic as accounts over due and no back up.

Working to see if we can talk to the hard drive.....

Talking to the drive now after much ado. Now to see if we can extract the data

Well we got the old drive working and have now cloned the data onto a brand new drive so the system is a good as new.

The client is going to do a back up!!!

Laptop set up

Alex is currently setting up an brand new iPhone on a brand new Asus laptop with SSD (drool) for a brand new customer :)

Alex has spent the last hr introducing the client to the joys & benefits of gmail, calendar etc etc. Don't think many of our competitors would do that!

Christmas Repairs

Workshop busy with the usual computer and laptop repairs and working very hard to get them all finished and back to their owners in time for Christmas

New Virus Detection and Removal Equipment

Working on some new techniques to detect some of the deeper planted viruses and root kits particularly those that bring down other payloads and cause nested infections.

Hopefully this will speed up the process and reduce the number of scans required but only extensive testing will tell.

As soon as the testing has been completed we plan to integrate the new items in to our virus removal process

In the process of testing the new virus removal techniques, we became aware of this new trend in virus attacks on computers

New Project A Mean Media PC

As part of our computer workshop R & D, we undertake some product development, I'm going to be building a Media PC (for recording & watching digital content) and a Gaming Media PC over the next couple of days.

It will have to be a powerful small form factor PC, Win 7, decent processor & graphics card, 4 gig RAM, HDMI out and 7.1 sound. Also needs to be very quiet

Will update with the results

Decided it will be based on the Shuttle
Here is a link to the Shuttle Home page

Have a look at this article on How to connect your laptop or computer to your wide screen TV

The Horror

As a enthusiastic PC gamer in my spare time I pride myself in having a powerful gaming rig.
For my next upgrade I decided to take the plunge into Crossfire graphics. This is where you have two identical graphics cards that in tandem giving you up to 50% performance increase.
So there was much joy in the workshop when it arrived. You could say I was more than eager to get home and try out my 2nd card.
After a painful ride on the bus home, what felt like an age, I was back home and straight into the guts of my pc to fit the new card. Yet to my absolute HORROR i had forgotten to take a longer crossfire cable home with me from the workshop (the cable that connects the two cards together).
My heart sunk as I would not see my performance increase until tomorrow evening.

If you want a gaming rig custom built have a look Custom Gaming PC Build Service or if you fancy a pre-built gaming PC that is over clocked and has all the bells & whistles, this is really worth a look

PC Solutions Repair Bench is looking busy today

Today in the workshop we are fairly busy. Our engineers are working on a range of repairs mainly on desktops today.